The Crick anecdote is not to encourage people to try LSD so they can gain a connection to Francis Crick. Instead, it prompts a sense of dissonance between popular mentalities towards the substance and a luminary's position on it. Nutt's over-arching point is that society should pivot away from prohibition to harm reduction, which rests on people being informed about the realistic risks surrounding various substances.

LSD probably did not assist Francis Crick in discovering the double helix. Although LSD was available in 1953, it wasn't widely known or used until the 60s, and there's no evidence Crick would have had access to it (see the excerpt from Matt Ridley's book at http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/6835/was-francis...). This story seems to have originated with a Mail article published after Crick's death (http://www.miqel.com/entheogens/francis_crick_dna_lsd.html), and AFAIK has never been verified. While other evidence suggests that Crick experimented with LSD later in his life, he probably did not discover the double helix under its influence.

OTOH, Kary Mullis explicitly attributes PCR to his LSD use. I'd ordinarily believe the primary source over uninformed speculation, but Mullis is also an AIDS and climate change denialist who claims he once spoke to a glowing green raccoon, so he is probably not the most reliable source either.

No, it's how strongly people object to your dismissal of a couple of great scientists expressing an appreciation of LSD as somehow false, and your assertions that you obviously know better than them.

A dismissal, I might add, with absolutely no argument behind it, simply an arrogant statement.

No, it wouldn't bother people so much if you made an argument instead of handing out judgement. You come across as extremely arrogant and you don't make arguments, you make statements.

It's not reserved for trolls. There's also room there for people who complain about being downvoted.

By pandering, do you mean actually form an argument instead of expecting people to accepted the Truth you've revealed?

The difference is that simonster actually presented facts, while your post was just "nu-uh".

What about Steve Jobs's similar statement that taking LSD was "one of the two or three most important things [he did] in [his] life."

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2009/07/09/dr-lsd-to-steve-jobs-...

Well, you could extend your argument to state that one of the most important things in Van Gogh's life was to sever his own ear and hand it to a prostitute. Therefore, those who wish to become good painters ought to sever their ear. The fallacy in your argument is simply: "person x has done y, which led them to achievement z. therefore, if you do y, you will also achieve z, because person x had done so." I don't think this is a good way of refuting the parent comment, as disingenuous as it is.

Unless you can produce evidence that Van Gogh attributed his artistic skill to cutting off his ear, that doesn't follow. You've compared two dissimilar things.

I'm not inclined to give full credence to what someone attributes their own success to, either. I'm not taking a position either way, just observing that your argument is unfounded.

Also - unless you can produce evidence that having artistic skill of Van Gogh is intrinsically valuable.

Is there evidence to support the claim that Van Gogh believed cutting his ear off was important to his life and work? If not, then this is a very different example to that of Jobs' claim and is an equally poor way of refuting a position.

There's no evidence to that. From my personal experience (yes, anecdotal etc) with dozens of LSD taking friends over the course of many many years, they all end up attributing huge importance to their acid trips, and all the insights gained from them. The problem is this is the same with the brilliant friend, and with the do nothing, sit on my couch all day friend. For example: one of my friends, after taking acid, was so euphoric because, as he told me, he now understood so much. 'Like what?", I asked, and the only things he could tell me he understood was stuff like "i know why this lamppost is here", and "I know why there's a sign over that bakery", and other crap like that. And no, there wasn't anything deeper than that. I prodded.

So you are willing to discredit everyone's claim to the importance of their trips based on examples of people who falsely claim that their's was important?

I don't think anyone here is arguing the position that LSD will have a profound impact on anyone who takes it, just that it can give people a different way of looking at the world and sometimes that leads to novel and important insights.

Replace "LSD trip" with "university degree" in your example. Sure, there are many people who take a physics course and feel as though they have had profound insights but actually haven't. However, you can't use those examples to argue that everyone who claims their physics course has inspired their life and work is lying.

No, when I said "There's no evidence to that" I was referring to wether Van Gogh cutting his ear off was important to his life and work. I didn't discredit everyone's claim to the importance of nothing, just the claims of my closer friends, and I even acknowledged it as anecdotal evidence. Now, when you want to replace 'LSD' with 'physics course', then I'll disagree with you. If someone completed a university physics course, then yeah, they probably actually gained some important insight/knowledge as to how things are. If I ask a physicist why the sun is shining he probably won't answer me that it is "just the effective energy of the whole cosmos"(true quote -- again, lots os my friends took acid). Plus, saying that LSD sometimes leads to novel and important insights is just as anecdotal. Where are all the scientists and Nobel winners that attribute their discoveries to their acid trips? I've heard one or two, mostly just the DNA thing.

As someone with direct experience of the stuff a number of times (all a long time ago now) let me just say.... spot on.

I think the psychedelic experience at most produces an unwarranted sense of the profound. You may feel like revelations have occurred, but really they were nothing. Like those dreams when you figure it all out but when you wake up it's gone, or it was something about wearing your trousers backwards to solve the problem of disharmony in the middle east.

That's not to say I don't think there are a whole load of positives in there, but deeper understanding of the universe and yourself? Meh, I say, meh.

Anything that causes a connection or association of ideas that wouldn't have otherwise been formed holds the potential to facilitate a deeper understanding of ones' self or the universe.

Even in my limited experimentation with drugs, I feel as though I've experienced thought outside the realm of regularity.

That's what the trip produces, a feeling of deep insight of everything. Maybe it trips some "Eureka" area in the brain.

It's not only LSD that does it either, other drugs do it, as do some activities. People with a lot of practice in meditation seem to develop the same feeling, from the way they describe it.

Depends on every person, you cannot generalise, especially if you do not have such experience. LSD unlocked me a door in my head and I know I'll never be the same as before, I think my brain somehow changed physically. I lost lot of fears and could analyse myself as being part of nature. I was 19, now I'm 33 but I still enjoy remembering that moments; I took it 4 times. BTW I'm not a hippie but SW engineer :-)

Plato's Cave.

Go on… actually make your case…

Are you honestly arguing against doing something because intellectuals that inspire you advocate it? That's a fantastic reason to seek out a new experience.

Go on… actually make your case…

So you can't decide you want to have a go because intellectuals that inspire you had good things to say about it?

That's not a valid choice in your opinion?

If one person out of a every thousand who tries it becomes a super-genius and the others end up drooling morons, then it's probably not a good bet. Anecdotes of selected inspirational people shouldn't be a major basis of your decision to tinker with your nogin.

It is something in favour of it, I don't think it's productive to pretend otherwise. But good decisions don't result purely from paying attention to what's in favour of a decision. If you want to know whether something's going to potentially mess your life up, the best way I've heard of is to honestly set out to prove that it is going to mess your life up before you actually do it - and if you fail to prove it then you've exercised due diligence.

If you have someone saying they had a really good time and on the other hand you have a bunch of drug users who are completely messed up, then you might want to exercise a bit of caution - you know?

That's hyperbolic. If 100 people took LSD, some would be negatively affected, some would have life-changing experiences, and most would just experience some profundity and hallucinations. I think even for them it would be life-changing, but not on the order of, say, being in an auto accident, or running a marathon, or raising a child.

People call these things "trips", and I'd say that's about right. (I haven't taken LSD, but have taken psylocibin which is milder.) An extended trip, vagabonding without a goal, going new places and meeting new people, without "pushing" to make things happen, is similar to a "psychedelic" experience. It is profound.

I wouldn't recommend using LSD. I'd recommend using a milder drug like psylocibin, or maybe mescaline extracted from a farmed San Pedro cactus. (Don't go after the peyote - it's going to go extinct.)

Also, I would suggest waiting until you're in your early 20s to 30s, and if possible, not using any alcohol or other drugs prior to it; I think it makes it harder to notice the dosage as its taking effect.

It's been around 20 years since I've last had a trip, but it affected me a lot and made me a less judgmental person. I did eat some around 10 years ago, but it was a tiny amount and had only a mild effect; but having curtailed drinking, it was a much better experience.

I do not know where to get these drugs now, nor am I interested in obtaining any.

Also, if you want a profound experience without chemicals, travel if you can afford it. Do some work with people who have difficulties in life. Work a physical job that leaves you exhausted. Teach something to someone who cannot learn a subject you find easy. If you put yourself in a situation where you're not only helping others, but allowing others to help you, you will have profound experiences often.

I'm not saying it shohld be the only factor! You should always know what you're getting into.

I also don't think LSD turns anyone into a super genius...

I was just reacting to a now deleted comment that said you should do it because you want to, not because your intellectual heroes thought it was great. Is it wrong to want to because people you respect say nice things about it? (While remembering to evaluate if it's really a good idea for you, of course.)

Oh, sorry ^^;

I don't see anything wrong with wanting to try something because your heroes thought it was great. Though, I can see that just because your heroes thought it was great doesn't necessarily mean that you'll want to. Maybe that was more what Mr Deleted meant? More along the lines of don't just get swept up in the actions of strong personalities.

Can't stress this enough, I went years researching and getting rid of my demons before engulfing in these experiences.

Of course, jumping the gun can be something very very amazing.

But sometimes, little preperation would not hurt.

That's a bit of a sweeping statement, how can you be so sure?

Well, that is certainly a bare assertion. Why claim it did not?

This statement implies that you know better than Crick and Watson what contributed to their discovery. That's absurd.

The same path you're following has destroyed uncountable lives. Just go ahead and watch this film [0]. May the truth set you free.

[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1276962/?ref_=sr_1